One Iranian dies every three days in just one province from a mine left over from the Iran-Iraq war, in a sad reminder of the conflict that ended 25 years ago this month.
That number is far greater than the periodic individual deaths reported in the media every few months and reveals a problem far greater than the government has ever previously admitted to.
The news website Tasnim quoted Haji Darabi, the director of the Demining Center in Ilam province on the Iraqi border, as saying that 810 deaths from wartime mines were registered in Ilam province from 2005 through 2012.
That is 2.2 deaths a week in just that one province. But there are five Iranian provinces along the border that were fought over in the 1980-88 war. And Ilam province covers less than one-third of the border’s length. If the other provinces have the same scale of mine problem as Iran, than the death toll is likely one per day.
The number announced by Darabi for Ilam alone is astounding given how long the war has been history and how much effort the Iranian government has said it has devoted to de-mining operations. The numbers suggest the effort has not been as great as claimed.
As if to emphasize the problem, the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported last Wednesday that four Pasdaran had been killed by a leftover mine in the Kamiaran region of Kurdistan province, far to the north of Ilam.
Both Iran and Iraq planted massive numbers of mines during the war.